My whole body feels soft. There are no hard parts anywhere. The sensation of the wind passing over me feels incredibly vivid. It is as if someone invisible is stroking my skin. I brush aside the bangs covering my vision and busily look around.
It is a different world. This is a human body. The form I desired from the bottom of my heart. I wonder what kind of expression I am masking right now? I am sure I must be smiling.
For a while, I could only stand there in a daze.
I had been immersed in sentimentality for a long time, but I suddenly returned to my senses. There is a mountain of things I need to confirm.
First, what happened to my original body? Right now, my consciousness resides in this human body. Vision, hearing, smell, and other senses are based on this body. This is likely due to the effect of 'Sensory Sharing' which I set as a special ability.
It is not that my body itself was transformed into a human one. This is strictly a Nen Beast, or what is called a Nen Doll. I, the user of the ability, should still exist separately.
Or has my main body been absorbed into this Nen Doll? I seem to recall there was an ability where one conjured Nen based on their own body to wear it and transform...
I looked around to see if my main body was nearby. At the base of the red plants near where I woke up, I discovered a burrow that had been dug out. I hadn't noticed it because my viewpoint had become much higher, but isn't this the 'My Home' I have used lovingly for years?
When I stuck my hand in and searched inside, my hand hit something. I dragged it out. It was a cold ant corpse—my main body.
"I-I'm dead...!"
To see my own dead figure, and for these to be the first words I speak after becoming human; it is a shock in a double sense. The main body is curled up with its legs tucked in, showing no sign of movement.
What does this mean? If the main body is truly dead, then what is this body I am in right now? I tried slamming it against the ground to see if there was any reaction.
"Ouch!?"
A shock ran through my whole body. To be precise, I only perceived that sensation. This means pain is being shared. It means the main body is still alive. Perhaps the Vow I made not to cut off 'Pain Sharing' is influencing this.
Maybe that pain acted as a trigger. The main body woke up. At that moment, I felt dizzy from the wave of information flowing into my brain. Is this because the information captured by the sensory organs of both the human body and the ant body is being recognized all at once?
While being completely separate existences, the contradictory situation of 'being two people' was established. Our perceptions linked, sharing consciousness and information.
"It feels gross..."
It's no good. Unable to stand the nausea, I cut off the sharing of senses other than pain.
The special ability 'Sensory Sharing' possessed by Nen Beasts. This in itself is not a rare ability. It is used to share vision with a reconnaissance Nen Beast and receive information in real-time even from a remote location.
However, if I recall correctly, users of this kind of remote viewing—not just Nen Beast users—usually had their own vision closed off while the ability was active. In other words, it is generally impossible to see both 'the scene one is looking at' and 'the scene at the remote location' at the same time.
There are exceptions, however. A certain sub-human Chimera Ant had the ability to use the 'compound eyes' of an insect to share vision with multiple reconnaissance Nen Beasts at once. I believe it was an ability called 'Super Eye'.
I, too, although for a short time, was definitely able to share two fields of vision. Not just vision, but all senses were shared. I certainly incorporated such settings when creating the ability, but whether it would work just because I said so is a different story.
I believe the reason the sharing of all senses succeeded lies in 'Mental Synchronization'. Through this ability, my consciousness became a shared consciousness entity performing identical thoughts. To state the conclusion, this Nen Doll's body is also being manipulated by 'Mental Synchronization', and a fragment of my consciousness has been formed within it.
The shared consciousness entity, which could only hold a single will, has become able to think separately. The 'Parallel Operation of Multiple Wills' that I was aiming for has been completed here. Perhaps the birth of a completely independent individual—a shared consciousness entity possessing sensory organs—acted as a stimulus, allowing it to break free from identical thought. It seems the ability 'Idolatry' has unexpectedly contributed to the advancement of 'Mental Synchronization'.
However, what is strange is that the subject of consciousness has shifted to the Nen Doll. Normally, shouldn't the main ant body be the subject? The relationship has become one where the Nen Doll is the main and the original body is the sub. Perhaps my strong desire to become human influenced this. I tried commanding the main body, which had stopped activity and become motionless, using 'Mental Synchronization'.
'Move.'
Receiving the command, the main body walks around in circles on the spot without meaning. I feel no intelligence from it. Like this, one cannot tell which one is the Nen Beast.
However, although I am not used to the sensation of parallel operation yet, I am convinced that with practice, I will be able to manipulate both the Nen Doll and the main body simultaneously as 'myself'. Not in the form of commands, but manipulating two bodies naturally as if moving my own body. I will surely elevate this ability to that realm.
There was something I wanted to do first if I became human. That is to give myself a "name".
I didn't need a name when I was an ant, nor did I think it was necessary. But there is no human without a name. Apparently, it is that important to humans.
I named this silver-haired girl 'Quinn'. Taken from Queen Ant, thus Quinn. I think it is simple, even for me, but it is better to be easy to understand than to have a weirdly twisted name. It should be. I will not accept objections.
As for me in the ant form, I have no intention of giving it a name in the future. I can just call it the Main Body.
The aura consumption to maintain the ability activation, which I was worried about, also turned out to be manageable. Because of the Vow, if I don't keep it active 24 hours a day no matter what, terrible things will happen. From now on, how I use my aura based on the operation of Quinn will become important.
Perhaps because it is a Conjuration ability, which I am bad at, the consumption was higher than expected. In exchange, the quality is high, and I have no complaints about the workmanship. There is no problem with aura if I just spend time normally without doing anything, and I can maintain the activation even when the Main Body is sleeping by transferring extra aura. However, it seemed that if I entered into combat using Nen, the consumption would instantly fall into the danger zone.
But here, the results of my training came alive. I succeeded in extracting aura from the eggs. This gave me quite a bit of leeway in aura consumption. It was worth devoting myself to 'Mental Synchronization' meditation training for a long time.
Or rather, recently I had only been doing meditation training. I was spacing out every day from morning to night in a state where I didn't know if I was asleep or awake. It is no exaggeration to say I was approaching the mental state of a plant. The precision of 'Mental Synchronization' has improved so much that I wonder when I grew this much. If I hadn't been able to conjure Quinn, would I still be in that state now? It is terrifying to think about.
The physical reproducibility of 'Idolatry', which I sought desperately by pushing myself that far, was surprisingly high. Truly, the fragility of the human body is astonishing. I scraped my knee and bled just by falling. And it hurts insanely. I cried. Conversely, I am impressed that humans can live with such bodies.
I can repair wounds by infusing aura, but there is nothing I can do about the pain sensation. The ant body also has pain, but it wasn't this pronounced. I wouldn't be very shaken even if my legs were torn off, but if the same thing was done to Quinn's body, I might faint. It makes me angry at how inconvenient this is, and at myself for carelessly making the Pain Sharing Vow. Indeed, this was a Vow that required resolve.
However, there were good things about becoming a human body too. One is athletic ability. I can run significantly faster compared to the pace of an ant. And the other is Nen ability. Quinn, reproduced completely as a single human, could use Nen abilities starting with the Four Major Principles.
That talent is incomparable to the Main Body. It is true that it's not a start from zero since I have accumulated training since I was originally an ant and have that foundation, but even taking that into account, it is tremendous. Not only the control of the Four Major Principles, but she also mastered all the advanced techniques that I had struggled with so much within that very day; this should tell you how off the charts she is.
The advanced technique 'Ryu' involves moving offensive and defensive power appropriately to various parts of the body in time with the enemy's movements, so this was the only one I couldn't do. It is a technique that can only be practiced with an opponent, an advanced technique that can be called both the basis and the secret of Nen combat. To train this, there is no choice but to gain actual combat experience.
However, moving offensive and defensive power alone can be done far more smoothly than when I was an ant. Although other advanced techniques are clumsy, I have formed a tentative shape. I suppose since Nen is a power invented by humans, the human body is indeed most suitable for handling it.
The Nen techniques Quinn acquired could be fed back to the Main Body to some extent. The reverse is also true, and the efficiency of training will likely increase dramatically from now on.
I intended to create this 'Idolatry' as a popular Conjuration ability at first, but using it in reality, I understood. This is an ability packed with outrageous performance. Looking at it now, I don't think I placed too many heavy Restrictions and Vows. Rather, without that much resolve, I probably wouldn't have been able to conjure Quinn.
However, there is one thing that bothered me. Quinn's Nen type. Since it is a Nen Doll made by me, a Manipulator, I naturally thought Quinn would also be a Manipulator, but when I tried the Water Divination training, a reaction different from before appeared.
The leaf floating on the water turned white. This is likely a change indicating a Specialist. As represented by a special change that does not appear in other types, Specialization is considered an unclassifiable ability that does not belong to any other type.
Among the six types, only Specialist users can learn Specialist Hatsu. If it is another type, it is possible to learn even incompatible types slightly depending on training, but Specialization is the exception. There is no set tendency for abilities, and each person gains a unique Hatsu unlike any other.
I thought that perhaps my own type had changed to Specialist. In the hexagon chart, those with constitutions for 'Manipulation' and 'Conjuration', which are adjacent to Specialization, may change to Specialist later in life.
To complete 'Idolatry', the coexistence of Conjuration and Manipulation was essential. If it is Specialization, it is in a position compatible with those two. If I consider that my passion for Quinn led to a change in type, it seems to make sense.
However, when I, the Main Body ant, performed the Water Divination for verification, a change indicating Manipulation was seen. As always, the leaf showed me a magnificent high-speed rotation. In other words, a disjointed result occurred: the Main Body is a Manipulator, but Quinn is a Specialist. I don't understand.
Well, perhaps a real human created from scratch with Nen ability surpasses the realms of Conjuration and Manipulation and can be called Specialization, maybe?